"Yes. And the Sandys are away in town, aren"t they?"
"They went up yesterday. Mr Sandys and his daughter are always at Park Lane on Wednesdays, I understand. I saw in the paper this morning that the party to-night has a rather political flavour, for two Cabinet Ministers and their wives are to be there."
"I suppose Mr Sandys must be very rich?"
"Immensely, they say. I heard the other day that he is one of the confidential advisers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he"ll probably get a peerage before long," said his father. "But, after all, he is not one of your modern, get-rich-quick men. He"s a real, solid, G.o.d-fearing man, who though so very wealthy does a large amount of good in a quiet, unostentatious way. Only three days ago he gave me a cheque for two hundred pounds and asked me to distribute it to the poor people at Christmas, but on no condition is his name to be mentioned to a soul.
So keep the information to yourself, Roddy."
"Of course I will," his son replied, puffing at his pipe.
"Mr Sandys asked about you," said the rector. "I am to take you to the Towers to dine one night very soon."
"I shall be delighted. Old Lord Farncombe asked me when I was last at home. Don"t you remember?"
"Of course," said his father. "But how have you been feeling to-day?
All right, I hope?"
"I feel quite right again now," replied the young man. Then, after a brief pause, he removed his pipe and looked straight across at his father as in a rather changed voice, he said: "Do you recollect, dad, the other day you spoke of a certain woman, and warned me against her?"
"Yes," said the old rector very seriously. "You recollect her name, I hope--Freda Crisp. Never forget that name, Roddy, _never_!"
"Why?"
"Because she is my enemy, my boy--and yours," replied the old man, in a hard, strained voice.
"Why should she be? I don"t know the lady."
"You said that you had some recollection of her in South America," the old clergyman remarked.
"It isn"t the same woman."
"Oh! How do you know?" asked his father, glancing at him quickly.
"Because I"ve seen the real Freda Crisp--the woman who you say is my enemy. I saw her to-night."
"You"ve seen her! Where?" asked Mr Homfray eagerly.
"She is the woman I see in my bad dreams--those hazy recollections of the hours when I was drugged--handsome, dark-haired, middle-aged, and wears wonderful gowns."
"Exactly! The description is quite correct, Roddy. But where did you see her to-night?"
"She is at Mr Sandys"."
"At Mr Sandys"?" gasped his father. "You are surely mistaken! Freda Crisp would never have the _entree_ there?"
"But she has, father! I saw her go in--with an elderly man whose name is Bertram Harrison."
"I"ve never heard of him. But are you quite certain of this, Roddy?
Are you positive that the woman is actually on friendly terms with Mr Sandys?"
Then Roddy explained to his father exactly what had occurred, and how he had obtained the name of the handsome guest.
"Well--what you tell me, my boy, utterly staggers me?" the old man admitted. "I never dreamed that the woman knew Purcell Sandys. I told you to beware of her, and I repeat my warning. She is a woman whose eyes are as fascinating as those of a snake, and whose hand-shake is as fatal as a poisoned dart."
"Really, dad, you don"t seem to like her, eh?"
"No, my boy, I don"t. I have cause--good cause, alas! to hold her in abhorrence--as your enemy and mine!"
"But why? I can"t understand you. You"ve never spoken of her till the other day."
"Because I--well, the secret is mine, Roddy."
"Yours," said his son. "Is it one that I may not know?"
"Yes. I would prefer to say nothing more," he answered briefly.
"Nothing more concerning a woman who held me for days beneath her evil influence, helpless as a babe in her unscrupulous hands--a woman who compelled me to--"
"To what, Roddy?" asked his father very quickly, and with difficulty controlling his own emotion.
"To commit some crime, I fear. But I cannot tell--I cannot decide exactly what I did--or how I acted. All seems so vague, indistinct and mysterious! All I remember is that woman"s handsome face--that pair of dark, evil eyes!"
"Yes," remarked the old man in a deep voice. "They are evil. The man is bad enough--but the woman is even worse."
"The man Harrison?"
"No. Gordon Gray. You have not met him."
"Perhaps I have. Perhaps he was the man with Mrs Crisp at the house where I was held in bondage--a big house standing in its own grounds-- but where it is situated, I have no idea."
"Perhaps," said his father reflectively. "Describe him."
Roddy Homfray strove to recall the salient points of the woman"s male companion, and as far as his recollection went he described them.
"Yes," said the rector, his grey brows knit.
"It may have been Gordon Gray! But why did they make that secret attack upon you, if not in order to injure me?"
"Because I discovered the girl in the wood. They evidently intended to cover all traces of the crime. But how did they come to Welling Wood at all?"
His father remained silent. He had said nothing of the woman"s secret visit to him, nor of Gray"s presence in the church on that Sunday night.
He kept his own counsel, yet now he fully realised the dastardly trap set for his son, and how, all unconsciously, the lad had fallen into it.
Only that afternoon Doctor Denton had called, and they had taken tea together. In the course of their conversation the doctor had told him how, when in London on the previous day, he had gone to an old fellow-student who was now a great mental specialist in Harley Street, and had had a conversation with him concerning Roddy"s case.
After hearing all the circ.u.mstances and a close description of the symptoms, the specialist had given it as his opinion that the ball of fire which Roddy had seen was undoubtedly the explosion of a small bomb of asphyxiating gas which had rendered him unconscious. Afterwards a certain drug recently invented by a chemist in Darmstadt had, no doubt, been injected into his arms. This drug was a most dangerous and terrible one, for while it had no influence upon a person"s actions, yet it paralysed the brain and almost inevitably caused insanity.
Roddy was practically cured, but the specialist had expressed a very serious fear that ere long signs of insanity would reappear, and it would then be incurable!